Calls strengthen for pedestrian lights on busy road

The owners of a residential village on Nelson Bay Road, north of Newcastle, say they would be prepared to pay for their own traffic studies to prove that traffic lights are needed to protect its residents.

Earlier this month an 11-year-old schoolgirl was hit by a car and seriously injured after getting off a schoolbus and attempting to cross the busy roadway.

Since then Hunter Valley buses has directed its drivers not to use the bus stop but to turn into the Bayway Village instead.

Bayway spokesman, Richard Black says traffic lights are the only solution as the traffic load on Nelson Bay Road continues to increase.

"Some of our longer-term residents, they've noticed a significant increase in traffic over the years," he said.

"There's been significant growth in residential development north of Bayway, and also the commercialisation of the airport is going to continue to result in more traffic, as well as the industrialisation of the area at Tomago."

The owners of a residential park at Fern Bay, north of Newcastle, where a schoolgirl was seriously injured after being hit by a car, say a new directive to bus drivers is not enough.

Mr Black says the new directive to bus drivers is not enough.

"We're concerned that at some future date, there's potential for a driver to not comply with that requirement and for further tragedies to occur," he said.

"It's just not acceptable to anybody that people's lives are put at risk unnecessarily because of increased traffic flows that don't have the infrastructure put in to support them."